POWERED BY MOMENTUM MEDIA
Hayne holds boards and senior management responsible
The Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry has cleared the way for criminal prosecutions, with the Commissioner, Kenneth Hayne arguing that, too often, financial services entities that broke the law were not properly held to account.
Hayne said primary responsibility for misconduct in the financial services lay with the entities concerned and those who managed and controlled those entities – “their boards and senior management”.
“Misconduct will be deterred only if entities believe that misconduct will be detected, denounced and justly punished,” he said in the royal commission’s final report.
‘Misconduct, especially misconduct that yields profit, is not deterred by requiring those who are found to have done wrong to do no more than pay compensation. And wrongdoing is not denounced by issuing a media release,” Hayne’s report said.
“The Australian community expects, and is entitled to expect, that if an entity breaks the law and causes damage to customers, it will compensate those affected customers. But the community also expects that financial services entities that break the law will be held to account,” the report said.
Hayne said choices now had to be made.
“The arrangements of the past have allowed conduct of the kinds and extent described here and in the Interim Report of the Commission. The damage done by that conduct to individuals and to the overall health and reputation of the financial services industry has been large. Saying sorry and promising not to do it again has not prevented recurrence.”
“The time has come to decide what is to be done in response to what has happened. The financial services industry is too important to the economy of the nation to allow what has happened in the past to continue or to happen again,” Hayne’s report said.
Recommended for you
While the Financial Advice Association Australia said it supports a performance testing regime “in principle”, it holds reservations about expanding this scope to retirement products.
In a Senate submission, the Financial Services Council said super funds should be able to nudge members on engaging with their super and has cautioned against default placements.
The Joint Associations Working Group, which counts FSC in its ranks, has issued an urgent warning to the government.
Senator Jane Hume will join the speaker lineup at the inaugural Australian Wealth Management Summit.
TOP PERFORMING FUNDS
ACS FIXED INT - AUSTRALIA/GLOBAL BOND
Fund name
3y(%)pa
1
Spire Oaktree Opportunities XI First Close USD
66.99 3 y p.a(%)
2
Hills International
63.66 3 y p.a(%)
3
Acadian Global Equity Long Short Class A
36.33 3 y p.a(%)
4
CFS FC Acadian Global Equity Long Short
35.96 3 y p.a(%)
5
DomaCom 4/27 Crombie Avenue Bundall QLD 4217 Australia
32.23 3 y p.a(%)
If the government is serious about improving superannuation by getting rid of small account and excessive fees, how about they look at why the ATO and super funds take so long to pay the Low Income Superannuation Tax Offset (LISTO) into people’s super accounts. It’s been 7 months since the end of the 2017-18 FY and still nothing.
Add new comment